AUSTRALIA DAY HONOURS

Giving The Gift Of Sight

INDERJIT (INDY) SINGH, OAM

For service to the international community through eye care programs

If you can give the gift of eyesight, you can give new life. So says Inderjit (Indy) Singh, Sydney-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, who has done exemplary work with his charitable foundation Vision Beyond Aus.

“For the poor and blind, life is not worth living,” he told Indian Link. “Family members go out to work leaving them alone, with no one to help them with their most basic needs. The e ects blindness can have on children in this section of society, girls in particular, is even more heartbreaking.”

Some 38,000 people have had their lives turned around thanks to Vision Beyond Aus, although its founder Indy has his aim set rmly at 100,000.

Indy was rst introduced to the idea of charitable work in eye care idea by close friends Dr Jay Chandra AM and Dr Shailja Chandra.

“As an ophthalmologist, Jay was running eye care programs among the needy in di erent parts of the world that Shailja helped organise,” Indy recounted. “It was very

Promilla

Creativity, cooking and community service are the 3 Cs that keep Promilla Gupta going. She has been involved not only with the Indian community, but with the wider multicultural community in two states.

Pammi Gupta as she is a ectionately known, is that friend or aunty who is always enthusiastic, ready to join in or help out. As President of the Indian Australian Association in Adelaide in 2007-2009, and more recently in Newcastle, she is well-known for her event management skills, easy-going manner and ability to bring the community together.

“Sharing a meal is a wonderfully enriching communal experience,” Promilla Gupta told Indian Link. “Food brings friends, families inspiring. Later at the Rotary Club of Sydney, I was able to take this up myself in a major way, and set up the foundation in 2011.”

No doubt the legendary Fred Hollows was an inspiration too.

“Yes most de nitely, but we go where Fred doesn’t always go – and our model is di erent. I raise the nds here, and we work in association with local hospitals and doctors. I’ve realised that local knowledge and expertise is vital to our program.”

The initiative has been taken to cities across India, Nepal, Myanmar and Cambodia, and plans are afoot for Ethiopia next.

“Nepal has been particularly welcoming and our program has been most successful there,” Indy revealed. “We’ve now started screening schoolkids in rural areas - 6000 screenings were performed last year alone. Our free gift of two notebooks each to the kids with the large kangaroo design on the front probably helped bring the kids in!”

As well, said Indy, when the doctors in the program come to Australia to present at conferences here, such as a brilliant young doctor from Ayodhya recently, it is enriching for them too in a whole new way.

There are many tales that Indy can tell from his work with Vision Beyond Aus. In one, a doctor told a recovering patient in southern India that funds from Australia had helped her to see. She replied, “I don’t know where Australia is, but God must live there.”

Indy Singh is well-known in the nancial services industry in Australia as Founder and Executive Chairman of the Fiducian Group. Last year he was recognised by the

Money Management magazine with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Launched in 1996, Fiducian o ers funds management, nancial planning, platform administration, nancial planning software and administration systems development.

A Lucknow lad, Indy was educated at the prestigious Doon School and then IIT.

“My family owned a steel rolling mill and a transport business,” he revealed. “But I had di erent aspirations from the family, and from the business world in India then. I worked brie y in Mumbai and Kolkata, and then in Nigeria. My wife and I came here for a holiday and liked it so much we decided we must bring up our kids here. We moved here in 1984.”

Fiducian has been a particularly satisfying career highlight. “I was able to compete with the big banks and institutions and operate in a similar marketplace. In the end, it helped me to help humanity in my own small way.”

The seed for social justice though was planted at an impressionable age. “At Doon School, the boys were encouraged to get into remote communities, clean, build, teach, and serve in other ways. The students came from families of multimillionaires and maharajas, but we all did it. For me particularly, it set me on the path to humanitarian work.”

Indy hopes to use his OAM honour to motivate New Australians.

“I’d love to mentor young migrants from India. I’m quite impressed with those I have met, or worked with, in recent years. I’d love to be able to guide them towards helping those in need, and for them to know that if I can get this honour, then they can too.”

He continued, “I’d say to them, make a commitment to this country. Learn to love it. Put aside the ‘one foot here, one foot there’ feeling. Adopt this country as your home, without forgetting your origins.”

Rajni Anand Luthra

also taught cooking at the local TAFE College. She also gave Indian cooking demonstrations and held classes at Migrant Resource Centre, community centres, schools etc.

She also got involved in community work. She organised various cultural functions, with 'Brides of India' and 'International Fashion Parade' proving to very popular. She also helped raise funds of about $20,000 for the Spastic Centres of South Australia.

and communities together. Cooking has been my lifelong passion, and through it I have found a way to give back to the Australian society that has given me so much.”

Over the last 35 years, Promilla has used her love for food in a multitude of ways –running a restaurant, writing books, doing radio shows, teaching cooking, cooking to fundraise, and simply feeding newly arrived migrants and international students nutritious meals.

Promilla and husband Satish Gupta migrated to Australia in 1983 to the steel town of Whyalla where they lived for nearly 20 years, before moving to Adelaide in 2002. In Whyalla Promilla ran an Indian restaurant and

Promilla has written 2 vegetarian cookbooks and is now writing a third. She has popularised Indian cooking everywhere she has lived, conducting classes and cooking shows, publishing recipes, giving radio talks and teaching at the University of the Third Age. In Newcastle, she started the Indian Super Chef competition which is likely to become an annual event.

Promilla’s creativity and love for life can be seen in the movie she made and acted in called Five Spices in Adelaide. It was a multicultural short lm about ve women from di erent ethnic backgrounds who learn to live together in harmony.

Teaming up with Salvation Army, Promilla volunteered to cook for about 120 homeless people every month. She also took many international students under her wing, teaching them cooking, helping them settle and cope with life.

Amongst her many accolades, Promilla lists a Pride of Australia Award in the Fair Go category (2006); Campbelltown Council’s Citizen of the Year (2007), and being a nalist in the Irene Krastev Award on International Women’s Day (2007).

She is a chef, an author, an anchor, a tutor at WEA, a tour leader for tours to India and runs her own business named ‘Promilla’s Kitchen’.

How does she t so much in? “I am just a positive minded person,” she replied simply. Pammi can’t praise her family enough for the encouragement they give her.“I’m particularly indebted to my husband Satish without whose encouragement and support (and recipe tastings!) I would not have been able to achieve so much.”

She greatly enjoys helping her kids (Nitin, a paediatrician, and Shivani, a motivational speaker), and four grandchildren acquire cooking skills too.

Vinaya Rai